A mysterious diary found in a box in the barn ...

It’s the beginning of a new year, and so it’s time to crack open the spine on that new calendar.

Or maybe, like me, you’ve resolved to be a better diarist.

I’ve kept diaries off and on for most of my life — starting on Christmas Day in 1972, when my mother gave me a fancy leather diary with my name stamped on it in gold lettering.

So fancy! So important!

I realize now that this was my mother’s way of encouraging me to be a writer.

Thanks, Mom. It’s been a grand adventure in wordsmithing.

(My writing career once took me all the way to Jackson Center, Ohio to cover an Airstream convention. Photo by Emily D Mason)

Last year the old barn behind my house got a thorough facelift. This extreme action was to save it from falling into a heap, like so many of the other barns around these parts.

I hadn’t dared to walk up the rickety staircase to the second floor of the barn in at least 30 years. I didn’t think there was much up there of interest — maybe a couple of busted chairs and a guano encrusted chifforobe or two.

Right before two of Bruno’s bravest young workers bounded up the stairs, I called out to them:

This particular cardboard box contained every treasure from my childhood, and it had been missing for over 40 years.

Honestly, I was joking when I directed the guys to find it. After all this time, I’d started to believe that the box was a mirage of sorts — a virtual amalgam of events, memories, ribbons, trophies, and bad hair cuts.

No busted chairs.

No guano-laced chifforobes.

No gardening tools, broken toys or busted buckets.

There was only ONE item in that large space:

A cardboard box. MY cardboard box.

Raccoon and squirrel urine must be a great preservative, because the contents of that box were surprisingly intact.